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REVISED!
3D
Graphics Cards for DCC
Intro,
Why Accelerate?, What
to Look For, PCI vs. AGP
Entry-Level,
Low-Cost, High-Speed 3D Acceleration: Sub $300 Cards
Mid-Range, High-Speed
3D Acceleration: Sub $1000 Cards
3Dlabs
Oxygen GVX1, NVIDIA Quadro GPU/ELSA
GLoria II, Intense3D Wildcat
3510, E&S Lightning
1200, E&S AccelGalaxy,
Appian Jeronimo 2000,
Diamond Fire GL1, ELSA
GLoria XXL
High-End,
Maximum 3D Acceleration: Cards Over $1,000
NVIDIA Quadro GPU / ELSA GLoria II
 The
NVIDIA Quadro GPU is an enhanced version of the GeForce 256 chip, geared
towards the professional design and authoring market. Using the same single-chip
integrated QuadEngine transform and lighting architecture, the Quadro
OpenGL GPU is targeted for the digital content creation and MCAD design
markets as opposed to the performance gaming audience.
To make its entry into this new marketplace a smoother one, NVIDIA chose
to partner with ELSA, a well-known and respected professional 3D graphics
board manufacturer. The Quadro GPU is currently only available through
its integration on the Elsa GLoria II board. Workstation vendors are starting
to feature the board as a mid-range 3D option. IBM has recently announced
it will offer the Elsa GLoria II in its Intellistation systems.
The Quadro and its older sister, the GeForce 256, are very similar. Using
essentially the same chip architecture, NVIDIA was able to enable certain
features on the higher-end Quadro processor which it had left disabled
for the lower cost GeForce chip. These features include the Quadro's enhanced
support for anti-aliased points and lines, two-sided lighting, front buffer
3D clipping and shared back-buffer support. The Quadro's peak triangle
rate is 17 million triangles per second, up from the GeForce high of 10-15
million triangles per second. The Quadro's 135MHz core clock is also 15MHz
higher than the GeForce, resulting in a 13% higher texture fill rate of
540 million pixels per second. The memory clock is unchanged resulting
in the same 2.656GB/s of memory bandwidth. Overall, the Quadro offers
over 200 billion operations per second of processing power.
As with the GeForce 256 GPU, professional applications that support OpenGL
will demonstrate substantial increases in performance due to the full
transform and lighting engines and dramatically increased pixel fill rates
that Quadro delivers. Virtually all professional applications support
OpenGL, meaning that virtually all professional applications will see
dramatic performance gains with a Quadro-based product. Quadro's support
for antialiasing of points, lines and polygons dramatically improves image
quality in wireframe modes of operation. The chip supports 32-bit color,
24-bit Z (represented in a fixed or floating format), and 8-bit stencil.
Up to 128MB of local frame buffer is supported, in either single our double
data rate modes.
The Quadro and DirectX 7 were designed in conjunction so that maximum
performance and compatibility could be achieved. Quadro supports a complete,
high performance, professional quality OpenGL Installable Client Driver
(ICD) on all Microsoft operating systems. Linux support for a complete
ICD implementation will be offered before the end of the year. The chip
also will support Intel's next-generation Pentium III Xeon and AMD's Athlon
CPUs as well as Windows 2000 and Windows NT.
 The
ELSA GLoria II
The ELSA GLoria II is a compact AGP card with the NVIDIA Quadro chip,
and 64MB of Single Data Rate (SDR) SDRAM. The card adheres to the NLX
form factor specification and has a layout closely resembling ELSA's ERAZOR
X, their SDRAM-based GeForce 256 product. The memory bus architecture
also appears to be the same except the ERAZOR X has half the memory. The
card's 350 MHz RAMDAC supports resolutions up to 2048x1536 at 85 Hz in
Truecolor. The card supports only analog video output with no LCD digital
outputs provided. It supports AGP 2X/4X (AGP Spec. 2.0).
Elsa's OpenGL drivers provide optimization for professional graphics applications.
There are dedicated applications drivers for AutoCAD 2000/R14 and 3D Studio
MAX/VIZ R3/2.x. The ELSA driver also has profiles specifically tuned for
the following 33 technical apps: 3Dstudio MAX, ALLPLAN/ALLPLOT, AnySim,
AutoCad, AVS/Express, CADdy++, CADKEY, CATIA, Cinema4D, DataCAD, dVISE-NT,
Exceed, FLOTHERM, Helix, HiCAD, HyperMesh, LightScape, LightWave3D, LOGOCAD/Triga,
MicroStation, OpenInventor, Pro/Designer, Pro/Engineer, Pro/Mechanica,
SoftImage3.8, SolidDesigner, SolidEdge, SolidWorks, UniCenter TNG, Unigraphics,
VISI-CAD & VISI-CAM, Visplan, and World Tool Kit.
The Elsa GLoria II's estimated street price is $650.
Lead
on to the Intense3D Wildcat 3510
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